Why the lawyer should not do the talking
In crisis communication a company is represented by one voice. It gives the statements and answers the media. In a simple crisis this can be a member of the leadership team or a spokesperson; in a serious crisis it should certainly be the most senior manager — usually the CEO.
When does a lawyer speak for the company? Never. (Only in court or before law enforcement authorities, to be precise.) There are several reasons for this.
It looks suspicious. If a company lets a lawyer speak for it, from the outside it looks as though it fears serious legal consequences.
Forget American TV series. Company lawyers are not usually great communicators who get straight to the point.
A lawyer has one fundamental goal, and you need them to achieve it as well as they possibly can — to protect you from legal consequences. That is what they focus on, and that is entirely as it should be. They do not care about the company’s image, they do not care about how sales develop; all they care about is that you do not end up in court. Do you want to distract them from that?
But during a crisis a company faces other risks too. It has customers. Employees. Suppliers. Owners. Business partners. It has its brand and its reputation. And sometimes a statement that is perfectly safe from a legal point of view is disastrous from a communication point of view.
The result is the kind of statement we all know. The company is “looking into the situation”, “will not comment at this time”, “rejects speculation” or “cannot provide further information in view of the ongoing proceedings”.
This conflict was very clearly visible during Boeing’s crisis after the 737 MAX crashes.
After Lion Air flight 610 went down in October 2018, Boeing defended the aircraft’s safety and publicly rejected the need for more fundamental changes to the system or to pilot training. After the second tragic crash, Ethiopian Airlines in March 2019, the worldwide grounding of the aircraft and mounting pressure, the company gradually changed its tone.
Boeing found itself in an extraordinarily difficult position. It needed to convince the public, airlines and pilots that its aircraft were safe. At the same time, any admission of a mistake could have enormous legal consequences.
Aviation consultant Scott Hamilton told the Washington Post at the time that Boeing’s public statements were “completely driven by what their lawyers will allow them to say”.
The lawyers were dealing with the legal risk of individual statements. At the same time the company was dealing with something far bigger — whether people still believed it built safe aircraft.
Legal risk and reputational risk are not the same thing. And you cannot manage one by ceasing to manage the other.
So you do need a lawyer. Very much so. In a serious crisis it is very useful for your lawyer to sit on the crisis team. To assess the situation, name the legal risks and check the statements.
Do not let them apply excessive caution to everything, but do let them protect you.
The lawyer’s job is to help the company speak safely. Not to make sure it would rather not speak at all.
